Trivia / Flesh+Blood (1985)

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $6.5 million. Box office, $100,000 (domestic). This was the last time screenwriter Gerard Soeteman worked with director Paul Verhoeven for 20 years; while Verhoeven moved on to Hollywood and did RoboCop, Soeteman stayed low-key, but eventually partnered with Verhoeven again to do 2006's Black Book.
• California Doubling: Set in Italy, but filmed on-location in Cáceres and Ávila, Spain.
• Completely Different Title:
  • The film has two different titles in Japan, depending of the media the movie was released on: The TV version was named Honnou no Iron Commando: Jigoku-jou no Daibouken (Burning Iron Commando: the Great Adventure in the Hellish Castle) and the video release (and the official one) was renamed as Great Warriors: Yokubou no Ken (subtitle translated as The Sword of Desire).
  • In Spain, where it was filmed, it received the title of Los señores del acero (The Lords of Steel).
• Divorced Installment: The movie's script was based on unused story ideas Verhoeven and screenwriter Gerard Soeteman had for Floris, a Dutch medieval action TV series Verhoeven directed in 1969, very early in his career. The movie can be seen as a Darker and Edgier take on the series' concept.
• Executive Meddling: Orion requested changes, feeling that the film needed a love interest so Agnes was introduced and attention turned to her romantic entanglement with both Martin and Steven. Verhoeven would later say: "The triangular relationship is now the main story line, but in retrospect I think we should have stuck with Hawkwood and Martin. The failure of Flesh and Blood was a lesson for me: never again compromise on the main story line of a script."
• Fake Nationality: Needless to say, none of the cast are Italian.
• Hey, It's That Place!: The castle that is featured in this film, the Belmonte Castle in Cuenca, Castilla-La Mancha in Spain, was the one that had been previously used in El Cid.
• Hostility on the Set: Paul Verhoeven and Rutger Hauer had so many arguments on the set that the crew insisted that they quarreled in English so they could understand what all the discussions were about.
• Production Nickname: There was so much competition for screen presence among the actors that some of them started to call the movie Flesh + Blood + Elbows, in the sense that some cast members would literally use their elbows to push others out of frame.
• Troubled Production: The production was plagued by adversities. There was great animosity among the Spanish, American and Dutch crew and cast members; actors were using alcohol and drugs on the set, while wind, heavy snowfall and cold often disrupted filming, causing the movie to go over budget. Paul Verhoeven would later call it the worst filming experience of his life, one that made him consider quitting making movies altogether.
• What Could Have Been: Nastassja Kinski and Rebecca De Mornay were considered for Agnes. De Mornay was rejected because she demanded that her then boyfriend, Tom Cruise, be cast as Steven.
• Working Title: The Mercenaries and God's Own Butchers.

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